His calloused hands roam my body, squeezing my breasts until it hurts.
I take a bite of my bagel and realize I didn’t even remember to put cream cheese on it. Ugh. I chew the tasteless bagel and try to keep my mind focused. I have a trying day ahead of me at work. Ever since Ted caught us…
His tongue swirls in my mouth and his cock moves inside me.
I clench my hand on my coffee cup and close my eyes. Stop it. Stop thinking about him. Stop remembering. I have way more important things to think about, like how I’m going to make this month’s rent and pay the three thousand dollar hospital bill for my mom’s chemo, or how I’m going to keep my sanity working for Ted when he knows he can literally end my career with a phone call.
I look at the gum wrapper again. I want to call him. Even if it’s just to tell him how much of an asshole he is one more time. Before I know what I’m doing, my fingers are flying over the numbers on my phone. It’s ringing. I stare at the phone in disbelief at first, slowly raising it to my ear and waiting. What are you doing? What the fuck are you doing?
“This is Leo,” he says through the phone. His voice is so much sexier than I remember.
“It’s me,” I say. “I just wanted to call to tell you to—”
“I missed you,” he says.
“Then why didn’t you come wait by my car again?” I ask. I feel the conversation spinning out of control again, like he can dictate the direction it will go by the force of his will alone. I’m supposed to be the psychologist. I’m the one with years of training in the human mind and how to control a conversation. I want to growl in frustration. None of that seems to help around him.
I can practically hear the smirk in his voice. “Would you like it if I did?”
“I would like it if you gave a shit about what you put me through.”
He pauses. “Is that why you called? Or do you want me to ask you out to dinner again?”
“What makes you think I want that?” I ask. As much as I want nothing more than to see him again, I’m stronger than that. I’m not going to beg him for it. I’ll take my pride over my desire if I have to.
“Because you haven’t stopped thinking about me,” he says. “You’re calling me a week after I gave you my number. That means you spent a week holding onto that little scrap of paper, trying not to call because you are pissed at me. You tried for an entire week and now...here we are. You must really want to see me again.”
I blush. Maybe he should have been a psychologist. “Well, it’s a good thing you’re not the psychologist here, because you’re completely off target. Want to know how badly I want to see you again?” I slam the phone down on the table and press end call.
I cradle my head in my hands, wanting to just scream. You’re losing it, Julia. You’re really losing it this time. The phone rings a few seconds later. It’s his number. I watch it, hand hovering over the phone. I know if I ignore it, this can all end, right here.
I’ve convinced myself that going out with him would be a failure, that it would be weakness. Maybe the truth is avoiding him would be the weak decision. Maybe all along I’ve been doing the cowardly thing by running from him and trying to cut him out of my life. I decided to own my mistake, but I’m never going to find any sort of closure about what happened unless I give Leo another chance. I need to do this, for myself, even if it might be dangerous.
I pick up the phone.
I’m wearing my sexiest dress when I meet him outside my apartment. Leo wears a coal-gray suit with a black dress shirt. His hair is pushed away from his face in a careless way that is irresistibly sexy. He has the kind of face that would look good with any hairstyle or no hair, even. His suit fits him perfectly, accentuating his broad shoulders and drawing lines that drive my eyes down his body. But tonight isn’t about fantasy. It’s not about re-living those moments we shared in my office. It’s not about us. It’s about moving on, closure, and a chance to face my mistake and move past it.
Still, when he looks me up and down and smiles appreciatively, I can’t help feeling my heart flutter.
“You look amazing,” he says.
“Thank you,” I say. I spent longer than I intended getting ready. It didn’t seem to matter how many times I told myself this wasn’t a date. I just wanted to look good. I’m allowed to want to look good when I go out in public, aren’t I? It doesn’t have to mean I’m trying to impress anyone. Then again, that doesn’t exactly explain why I wore my sexiest underwear, too.
Jersey City towers around us, blotting out the stars in the night sky, and the road is choked with red tail lights as people inch their way to their destinations. It’s an ugly, crude place, but it’s home for me now. I went to grad school here and fell in love with something about it. Even though it’s still a big city, it doesn’t have the same anonymous feel that New York always had to me, like I was a faceless body in the crowd. I know the cashier at the Goodwill and I know the kid who is always walking his dog by my place around the time I head out for the office. Something about it makes me feel more like I’m home than New York ever did.
“So where are we going?” I ask.
“A place nearby, come on, we’ll walk.”
He puts a possessive hand on my back and I hate how good it feels. We just walk through the city like it’s the most normal thing in the world, comfortable in each other's silence and at ease. I even begin to forget why I am so angry with him. Some of the psychologist in me comes out and I start wondering if maybe I’m just projecting my anger on him, blaming him for all the unfairness in my life.
We reach a small staircase that leads down under an awning. There’s a man in a suit standing outside who notices Leo and hurries inside immediately. Leo leads me down the stairs where we’re greeted by a maî·tre d’.
“Mr. Citrione! It has been too long,” says the balding man. He smiles wide, but his eyes dart from Leo to the street behind him. What is he looking for?
“We need a table for two,” says Leo.
“Of course, of course.” The maî·tre d’ leads us inside and snaps his fingers at two busboys, who hurry to clear a table for us. A small group of people waiting for a table give us ugly looks, but Leo doesn’t seem to notice. Did they just put us ahead of all these people because they are afraid of Leo? I follow Leo and the maî·tre d’ to our table, feeling more than a little anxious. Just how dangerous is he?
Leo pulls out my chair and helps me sit, taking his place across from me at the small round table. It’s a tablecloth and candle kind of place. Soft music washes over the room and the conversation is muted, but constant. Well-dressed waiters and waitresses sweep through the room with iced bottles of champagne and wine decanters resting against white cloths draped over their forearms. The menu only lists six items and I can’t even begin to decipher what they are. The language looks like French, but I can’t be sure.
“I told you this wasn’t a date,” I say. “You didn’t have to pick such a fancy place.”
“If it’s not a date, why did you spend so long making yourself look so sexy?”
I clear my throat and adjust the napkin in my lap. “Look. If you want this to be more than just...physical, you’re going to have to stop.”
He frowns. “Stop what?”
I make a gesture toward him that isn’t even clear to me. “That. Whatever it is you do that makes it so hard for me to concentrate. You want the truth? Yes, I’m attracted to you. Yes, that was the best…” I lower my voice. “It was the best sex I’ve ever had.”
He licks his lips slowly, drawing my eye. Focus. Say what you came to say, Julia.
“We did this backwards. So no more sex, no more touching. If you want to keep seeing me, we need to start over. You tell me about you and I’ll tell you about me and we’ll go from there.”
He regards me calmy, eyes narrowed slightly. He shrugs. “Okay, so we start over, but I should warn you. I start pretty close to the finish line.”
The waiter saves me from having to respond to t
hat by arriving with a bottle of wine. I know it’s expensive wine because he pours it in a decanter before filling our glasses. Leo orders for both of us, pronouncing the foreign words fluently and with a confidence that I can’t help but find attractive.
When the waiter leaves, Leo spreads his hands. “Well, Dr. Connors, seeing as you’re the psychologist here, what can you tell me about myself?”
I purse my lips. “You’re confident.” I say. “Some men pretend to be confident as a defense mechanism, a way to ward off potential danger. Others pretend for attention. Very few men actually are confident. You’re not pretending though, and I’m trying to figure out if it’s because you’re ignorant or dangerous.”
The corner of his mouth twitches in a grin.
I put a finger to my lips, rubbing them slowly as I examine him, letting my thoughts prod his psyche. “People think all humans are the top of the food chain, but I think it’s more complicated than that. Some humans prey on others. Apex predators. They are stronger and more clever than most people, and because normal pursuits aren’t challenging enough for them, they assert their dominance over others. I think that’s you. The apex predator.”
He looks down, flashing his long eyelashes before his eyes snap up to meet mine. “If I’m the apex predator, and you won’t submit to me, what does that make you?”
I laugh softly. “Your match, I suppose.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that why I can’t get you out of my head?”
My thoughts exactly. I can’t help wondering if I’m drawn to him because he challenges me. Where most men are like open books to me, Leo is a mystery. He’s dark and dangerous, and the only way to find out more is to get close, if I dare.
We’re served an entree of foie gras. Leo tells me it’s the liver of ducks that are specially fattened to make the liver more tender. I try not to look disgusted. Liver? I have to admit it looks appetizing though, like a darkened, glazed chicken breast. I jab at it with my fork, surprised by the buttery texture. Leo watches me in amusement, eyes twinkling in the candlelight. Someone laughs a few tables over and a waiter clatters several plates together at the back of the restaurant. If not for the tattoos peeking up his neck and hands, I could almost think I was dining with a wealthy gentleman who comes from a long family line of old money.
Almost.
The power in his body betrays the truth. Easy lives don’t make faces and bodies like his. There’s no way a man who grew up sipping cocktails and lounging poolside could hold so much fire in his eyes. His confidence wouldn’t be so real, so primal. No. This is not a soft man with a soft past. He has done and seen things worse than I can imagine, and still I can’t make myself walk away. He fascinates me. Physically, mentally, emotionally.
He doesn’t speak much, but his body language and eyes say so much more than most men can communicate with words. It’s all in the steamy glances and appraising movement of his eyes, the way he has a tendency to bite or lick his lips when he looks at me—a dead giveaway for sexual attraction, if it wasn’t already obvious enough.
I set down my fork before I eat myself into a food coma. The foie gras is buttery smooth and seasoned with a delicious sauce that tastes like cranberries, and it’s served over a bed of vegetables that are cooked so perfectly and flavorfully that I would come back just to order them. The wine is like nothing I’ve ever tasted. It’s sweeter than I usually prefer, but there’s a warm note that follows every sip and seems to burn away the sweet. It pairs perfectly with the meal, and I can’t help sitting back and smiling when I’m finished.
“That was incredible,” I say.
“It’s my favorite. I knew you would like it.”
“You still haven’t told me anything about yourself.”
He nods slowly, tossing his napkin on the table and running a thumb across his lips. “Old habit, I guess. Tell me what you want to know and I’ll tell you if I can answer.”
“What do you really do for a living?”
“Next question.”
“I need to know what you do for a living.”
“Haven’t you already guessed?” he asks.
I swallow. Yes. Mafia, probably. Too smart for a street criminal and too dangerous for anything legitimate. “I’m tired of guessing. I want you to answer me, or this isn’t going to work. What do you do?”
He gives me a strange look, narrowing his eyes as if he’s seeing me in a new light for the first time. “Fine,” he says. “I hurt people.”
It feels like the room grows a little darker, as if the candle flickers in the face of his darkness. “Have you...killed?”
“Do you really think I’m going to answer that?”
Yes, he has. Jesus Christ, Julia, what are you doing with this man? “Do you have kids?”
He laughs. “No. Hell no.”
“Family?” I know from talking to Callie that he’s related to Damian and Vince, but I want to see how much he’s willing to tell me.
“Sure. Parents are gone, but I have a little brother and cousins up in New York.”
“Does your family hurt people, too? For a living, I mean?”
Our waiter sets down a mound of some sort of chocolate cake. He uses a small cup to pour steaming chocolate over the top, and the cake splits open, revealing a thicker chocolate filling inside. Then he drops two scoops of ice cream beside it. I’m mildly annoyed that he interrupted my interrogation of Leo, but I can’t quite make myself be too mad when I dig my spoon in and taste the chocolate bliss.
“My family’s business is their own. I don’t get involved.”
I drop the topic, feeling like I’m tiptoeing around his shut-off point. I take a bite of the chocolate cake. “Wow,” I say.
He smirks up at me, looking irresistibly handsome in the candlelight. “I used to come here with my parents when I was a kid. My brother and I would always beg them to let us get this desert.”
I’m surprised to hear him opening up without me prodding. My training tells me the best way to get him to keep talking is to say nothing, so I just watch him, listening intently, waiting through the silences.
“Coming here always makes me think of them,” he says. His eyes find the candle and stay there, as if he’s transfixed, mind traveling to another place. A clattering plate a few tables over seems to snap him out of the spell, and I can practically see him closing up. “But that’s the past.”
I could ask him more, but I sense that he’ll shut me out if I do, so I try something else. “My parents could never afford a place like this, but I used to love it when my mom would take me to this little run-down ice cream place near my dad’s office. It was her way of rewarding me for putting up with the long drive to drop him off at work, I guess, but I have so many memories sitting outside on the splintery wooden bench, eating ice cream with her and laughing over the dumbest things.” A tear rolls down my cheek and I wipe it away, looking at it in surprise. “Sorry, I don’t know what—”
“She’s sick now, isn’t she?” he asks.
The question would normally irk me or offend me, but something in his tone softens the blow, making it intimate, almost as if he has been in the same place.
“Yes,” I say.
He nods, not asking for more details or asking what’s wrong with her, and I find myself relieved when he doesn’t. “I lost both my parents, one to violence and one to illness.” He laughs humorlessly, looking down briefly before meeting my eye again. “I wouldn’t recommend either, but having my dad there one day and then being gone the next was actually easier. Watching my mom…” He thinks and then seems to fail to find the words. “It’s not easy.”
A silence hangs between us, and though I can’t quite put my finger on how, I can’t make myself see him the same way anymore. He’s not just a dangerous, sex-crazed Adonis. He’s a person, too. A damaged person, broken, probably even more broken than I am.
He raises his eyebrows and sighs. “Anything else you want to know?”
I’m still dealing with the li
ttle he has told me and don’t know that I can handle much more for the moment. “How about another date? and we’ll go from there.”
“I thought this wasn’t a date?” He asks, laughter sparkling in his eyes.
“Fine. How about we go on a date. I pick the place this time.”
36
Leo
“I’ve never seen you like this over a girl, bro,” says Angelo. He sits in the passenger seat of my car. Carlito and Luca Bianchi are in the backseat. Luca is like a parasite, forced on us by the bosses because they want someone they trust keeping an eye on us. If only they knew how spineless Luca was, they probably wouldn’t bother.
We’re parked outside an Italian restaurant downtown. The owner owes the bosses protection money, and they want me to put the squeeze on him.
“Like this? What the fuck am I like?” I ask Angelo.
He grins. “Shit man, you turned down that perfect pair of tits that tried to get with you at Benito’s earlier, for one.”
I wave him off. “She looked like a bitch.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“If you’re done with the girl talk, I have to go in there and scare the shit out of this deadbeat.”
Angelo punches me on the shoulder. “It’s a good look on you is all I’m saying. I like seeing you happy for once.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, getting out of the car and patting my side, feeling the reassuring weight of my piece strapped beneath my arm, inside my suit jacket.
“Hey, Leo,” says Luca. “The bosses wanted me to remind you to get the interest he owes, too.”
I ignore Luca, slamming my door and heading toward the restaurant’s front door. Get the interest? Does he really think I need to be reminded?
The restaurant is pretty deserted, but a guy in a dress shirt undone enough to show his flabby, hairy chest comes out to greet me. I can tell by the way his eyes dart around the room that he knows exactly why I’m here.
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